The Courteeners: 'Our December tour will be responsible for some festive sickies'

The Courteeners' Liam Fray is promising to give the country a good reason to pull a 'sickie' with the band's tour this December.

Rather than the usual Christmas party excuses, the singer is promising that the band's end of year dates – including their biggest gig yet at Manchester's MEN Arena on December 10 – will provide good reason to bunk off work.

"There's always a lot of sick days in December so it's nice to know we'll be responsible for a lot of them," joked Fray.

The singer told NME he was looking forward to their homecoming, particularly as it will top their previous biggest gig, which was last year's festival show at Manchester Central.

"I did a tiny acoustic gig in December in 2005 and each year it's got bigger. We're very fortunate that we're in a position where we've made that connection with the fans that they come back each year. Playing to your home crowd always makes your heart skip a beat," he explained. "We've never really looked back at what we've done. Playing that big gig really last year we didn't really think about it, we just got into it. We just thought we've got an album out next year so we'll have to top it."

Fray added that he was "honoured" I Am Kloot were joining them on the bill for the show, particularly as he reckons it is coming at a good time for music in his hometown.

"There are lots of bands emerging from Manchester and I hope they go on to great things, but we feel like top dogs at the moment," he declared. "We feel like we're at the top of our game."

However, Fray insisted it was not just his hometown that would have a good December, though, and is looking forward to sending off the band's current album across the country.

"The whole tour is going to be good. It's nice to bring 'Falcon' to a close," he said. "We've been all around the world and we've done the festival. After this people won't see us for a while, we're going to go and do the next record, which will be different again. So they're going to be some shows to remember."